Turning on the waterworks in Pasadena a century ago

Water is in the air these days, so to speak, as the City of Pasadena Water and Power Department celebrates its centennial of municipal water with the opening of an exhibit at the Pasadena Public Library and other events.

Pasadena also has connections with the people involved in bringing water from the Colorado River to cities in Southern California.

Former Mayor Hiram Wadsworth has been called the father of the MWD, the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California. Today, Timothy Brick is Pasadena's representative on the MWD board.

But the mighty aqueduct system might never have been built without the civil engineering and management skills of Pasadenan Robert B. Diemer, who became general manager and chief engineer of the MWD in 1952.

Bob Diemer was born in Missouri in 1888. He worked his way through the University of Missouri, graduating in 1911 with a B.S. in civil engineering.

He worked on the North Platte Irrigation Project of the U.S. Reclamation Service and that taught him a lot about design and construction of water projects.

With other Bureau of Reclamation engineers, he worked on a big project in Mexico. He met F. E. Weymouth on these projects. Weymouth later became the first general manager of the MWD.

Then he worked on the route selection and design for the proposed Colorado River Aqueduct at the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power and then for the MWD.

He was assistant chief of field engineering for the Parker Route, the one selected.

In 1932, as construction started, Diemer was engineer in charge of the 65-mile stretch of the aqueduct that included a 40-mile tunnel through the Little San Bernardino Mountains. He is quoted as saying he had 24 tunnel headings going at once that he wanted to see if he could inspect in one day.

It took him 18 hours.

Diemer gained experience in the distribution part of the project and the softening and filtration plant. As said earlier, he became general manager in 1952, oversaw much expansion, and retired in 1961. He continued as Pasadena's representative on the MWD board until his death at his Lambert Drive home in 1966.

Today, the MWD's Robert B. Diemer Water Treatment Plant is on a hilltop in Yorba Linda.